{"id":209,"date":"2009-07-29T07:28:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-29T14:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=209"},"modified":"2009-07-29T07:28:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-29T14:28:00","slug":"americas-female-middle-distance-runners-step-up-their-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=209","title":{"rendered":"America&#8217;s Female Middle Distance Runners Step Up Their Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/default.aspx?term=anna willard&#038;iid=5578889\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.picapp.com\/ftp\/Images\/9\/0\/5\/4\/AVIVA_London_Grand_ab5a.jpg?resize=380%2C550\" width=\"380\" height=\"550\"  border=\"0\" alt=\"AVIVA London Grand Prix - Day Two\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.pis.picapp.com\/IamProd\/PicAppPIS\/JavaScript\/PisV4.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been a while since we&#8217;ve headed towards a Major and I&#8217;ve felt we had a real shot at a medal in the middle distances on the women&#8217;s side. Not since Jearl Miles Clark in the 800 in the late 90&#8217;s and Suzy Favor Hamilton in the 1500 at the start of this decade have we really had the talent to make an impact internationally. <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s changed in a big way in 2009! We got our first glimpse at the Prefontaine Classic where Jenny Barringer just missed victory by.01 while breaking the 4 minute barrier in the 1500 (3:59.90). Behind her we also saw outstanding runs by Anna Willard (4:01.44) and Christin Wurth Thomas (4:01.72). We also watched Maggie Vessey come from way back in the field for an upset win in the 800 in 2:00.18. Her stretch run showing that she had what it would take to run under 2 minutes.  <\/p>\n<p>They showed they had talent in Eugene, but Europe loomed large come summer, as success has been a rare commodity for US middle distance runners on the other side of The Pond. But this year has been different. Anna Willard got an 800 win in Paris at 1:58.80. Christin Wurth Thomas ran second in Rome and broke the 4 minute barrier in the 1500 with her 3:59.98 run. And just yesterday Maggie Vessey shocked the 800 field in Monaco with her 1:57.83 victory.<\/p>\n<p>On the heels of Shannon Rowbury&#8217;s emergence last year  &#8211; 4:00.33 and ranked #6 in the world in the 1500 &#8211; suddenly we have not one, not two, but FIVE young ladies that can truly compete on the world stage over 800 and 1500 meters!<\/p>\n<p>We will see in a few weeks just how well they do in Berlin. But the one thing they all seem to have in common is a very strong competitive spirit. So whether they do well at Worlds or it ends up being a &#8220;learning experience&#8221;, I am confident that we have a bright future in store with these young ladies. It&#8217;s been a long time coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a while since we&#8217;ve headed towards a Major and I&#8217;ve felt we had a real shot at a medal in the middle distances on the women&#8217;s side. Not since Jearl Miles Clark in the 800 in the late 90&#8217;s and Suzy Favor Hamilton in the 1500 at the start of this decade have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-3n","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}